


How to Disappear Completely

by destronomics



Category: The OC
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destronomics/pseuds/destronomics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Ryan can't stop himself from dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Disappear Completely

Sometimes he dreams of Sandy fucking him.

It's always rough and it always hurts and it always ends with that taste in his mouth. Sometimes it's just Sandy in his car and Ryan gripping the pay phone in his hand. Sandy opens the door and Ryan tosses his bike in the trunk and instead of driving to that neighborhood with pretty girl next door it's to the alley behind the bank where Ryan gets him off like one of Mom's old boyfriends. In his dreams he can feel Sandy's hand stuff money into his back pocket; feels Sandy as he brushes the back of his rough hand against Ryan's mouth. There's a smirk in that gesture -a smile that shouldn't fit on features like Sandy's.

He doesn't know why he imagines Sandy hurting him; fucking him. He knows there is something wrong in that, something deep seated and disturbed, but it's still there in the back of his head. Itching and scratching and slamming itself against his skull, it almost hurts each time Sandy shows him a kindness he doesn't try to expect anymore.

This is a dream he's had many times before.

He wakes up and his head hurts and his mouth tastes like vomit and his stomach burns and casts a negative a shadow within his torso. He watches Sandy and Kirsten over dinner and they way they move around each other and smile and live in such warmth and contentment and he finds his head can hurt even more. There's a special pain to watching the way a man moves, watching the way his hands grip a knife and his mouth forms words that laugh instead of whisper words Ryan can't bring himself to remember.

Ryan thinks he has issues. Lots of them, and not Seth's comic book kind either.

One time, when he and Marissa had a night inside, she brought out her self help books.

"Mom thought this would be the perfect birthday present," Marissa splays a couple of the small ones on his chest, a finger skipping between their spines and tapping him lightly through his shirt, "she didn't get why I called her a bitch." Marissa laughs like this is funny so Ryan pulls her closer against his chest, letting the books slip to the side and scatter on the bed.

Her head is small and feels almost frail, like a fragment of eggshell. His fingers sit between the strands of her hair and trace random patterns against her scalp. She told him once that it felt good, and he had been doing it ever since.

He knows that if he skates his fingernails just below the nape of her neck, her lips always find his jaw. He knows if he lets his palm fall flat against her head she'll find his lips and they'll kiss and it'll be normal and perfect like Things Are Supposed To Be.

He knows if his other hand comes up he can cup her head and pull her closer and the kiss can get so deep that he can feel her nipples against his chest and her breathing becoming his own.

He knows if he squeezes he can hold her up just by her neck and feel her muscles stretch and twist.

He knows that if he presses his fingers up against her trachea, into that little hollow and press them in real deep she'll choke and sputter and her hands will grasp at his wrists and he'll shake her, and shake her and shake and shake and shake...

And then he wakes up. Sometimes.

Sometimes he doesn't.

He tries not to think of people in terms of how he can hurt them. Seth said he broods like Batman sometimes and Ryan _feels_ like Batman sometimes: the way he can feel himself shut up and just watch and judge and tick off in his head all the ways he could make them cry.

He doesn't admit to himself that he has had Seth's weaknesses pegged from the first moment he saw him playing his video games, sprawled on the couch open and friendly. He doesn't admit to himself that sometimes he does it just to see how quickly Seth can fall apart and put himself back together again. He never truly believes that Ryan does things just to hurt him, just to see how far he can push things, Seth can't ever truly see anyone for what they can be. Ryan envies that, pities it too.

Sometimes he dreams it's Seth who's by the side of the road, lost and stupid and it's Ryan driving the car. He dreams that he's got Seth up against a hard surface and they are both begging for it and maybe he's not begging for it, and Seth's just saying _no_ over and over and over again...

"But I decided to read it anyway, for a giggle -see how many mental illnesses I could rack up before my next birthday." Marissa is talking again and her mouth is moving and he can picture broken teeth and flaming red welts along her neck and his mom whispering she's sorry-

Ryan thinks this is a cue to laugh so he does and Marissa just ends up looking at him strangely.

He shuts up and she kisses him and they don't talk for a few minutes after that. She leaves the book on the bed; by accident or on purpose he doesn't find the time to ask.

Sometimes when he dreams, Ryan is alone in his Mom's old place and his bike is outside on the lawn and no one is around and Ryan knows that everything is better now. There's a comfort in emptiness that Ryan can't bring himself to acknowledge, but he knows the people he cares about are safe now that he's alone.

This is not a nightmare. He doesn't know what to call something like that.

Sometimes Ryan just tries to keep his eyes open to keep himself safe.

Sometimes he's just too tired.


End file.
